Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/559

 heard a movement overhead, turned to the foot of the upper stairs, and called.

It was not Laura who was up there, but the maid, Judith. She came out of her chamber, looked down, and saw her mistress standing below.

“Did you speak, ma'am?”

“I called to Miss Laura, Judith. Is she up-stairs?”

The only room in which Laura was likely to be, if she was up-stairs, was the one occupied by Jane. Jane Chesney, ever self-denying, had given up the best lower rooms to her father and Laura, herself and Lucy sleeping above. Judith went and looked inside the chamber.

“No, ma'am, Miss Laura is not here. I’m sure she has not come up-stairs, or I should have heard her.”

Jane called again, but there was no answer. She looked everywhere she could think of, and at last went into the kitchen. Pompey was there alone.

“Pompey, do you know where Miss Laura is?”

Pompey was, as the saying runs, taken to. He had had his eyes and ears open this last week or two, and had not been unconscious of Miss Laura’s stolen interviews outside the house in the dusk of evening. Pompey had no idea of making mischief; old Pompey was fond of pretty Miss Laura, and had kept the secret as closely as she could have kept it; but on the other hand Pompey had no idea, could have no idea, of denying any information demanded of him by his mistress, Miss Chesney. So Pompey stood and stared in bewildered indecision, but never spoke.

“I ask you, Pompey, if you know where Miss Laura is,” repeated Jane, certain anxieties touching Laura taking sudden possession of her and rendering her voice sharp. “Why do you not answer me?”

“She there, missee,” replied Pompey at length, pointing to the garden. “She not catch cold; she got great big black shawl over her.”

Who is with her? Pompey, I ask you who is with her?”

She spoke with quiet authority, though she had laid her hand on her heart to still its tumultuous beating; authority that might not be disputed by poor Pompey.”

“I think it Misser Doctor. But she no stay over long with him, missee; she never does.”

Jane Chesney leaned against the dresser, feeling as if an avalanche had fallen and crushed her; feeling that if an avalanche fell and crushed the house for ever, it would be more tolerable than this disgrace which had fallen on it. In that moment there was a slight rustle of silk in the passage; it whirled by the kitchen door, and was lost on the floor above; and Jane knew that Laura had come in and taken shelter in her room.

Come in from the clandestine meeting with Mr. Carlton the surgeon; and the words of Pompey seemed to imply that these meetings were not altogether rare! Jane Chesney turned sick at heart. The disgrace was keen.

An incident occurred the following morning to cause some surprise at the house of Captain Chesney. When Pompey brought in the letters he presented them to Jane, as was customary. There were three. The first was addressed to Captain Chesney, and Jane immediately handed it to him across the breakfast table; the second was addressed to herself; and the third bore the superscription “The Right Honourable the Earl of Oakburn.”

It was not a pleasant morning, for the rain was pattering against the window panes. The breakfast-table was laid near the window in the drawing-room, where the captain, in his despotic will, chose that they should breakfast. He had taken a liking to the room; to its pretty glass windows that opened on the lawn. Captain Chesney unsealed his letter the moment it was handed to him, and became absorbed in the contents. Jane kept glancing at the one addressed to Lord Oakburn, but she would not interrupt her father to speak of it. When he had finished reading his letter he looked up.

“Are both those for you, Jane?”

“Not both, papa. One is directed to Lord Oakburn. See. I cannot make out why it should have been sent here.”

Captain Chesney stretched out his hand for the letter, and turned it about to regard it, after the usual manner of people when a letter puzzles them.

“Yes, it is for him, sure enough. ‘The Right Honourable the Earl of Oakburn, Cedar Lodge, the Rise, South Wennock, continued. he, reading the full superscription aloud. “He must be coming here, Jane.”

“I suppose he must, papa. It is the only conclusion I can draw.”

“Very condescending of him, I’m sure,” growled the captain. “It’s an honour he has not accorded me since he was at Eton. What is bringing him here, I wonder? Wants change of scene perhaps.”

Jane took alarm. “You don’t think he